Cannot get CSS to work in iTextSharp (5.4.3) when

Question

I have a problem trying to apply a css file to my pdf using the iTextSharp (5.4.3) generation library. basically the css is not being applied at all.

I have the following method in my vb.net file

    Protected Sub btnPreview_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnPreview.Click
    Dim bytes As Byte()
    bytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(letterRadEdit.Content)

    Dim tagProcessor As tool.xml.html.DefaultTagProcessorFactory()

    Using input As New MemoryStream(bytes, False)

        Dim ms As New MemoryStream()

        Dim document As New iTextSharp.text.Document(iTextSharp.text.PageSize.LETTER, 36, 36, 36, 36)
        Dim writer As PdfWriter = PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, ms)

        writer.CloseStream = False
        document.Open()

        Dim htmlContext As HtmlPipelineContext = New HtmlPipelineContext(Nothing)
        htmlContext.SetAcceptUnknown(True)
        htmlContext.SetTagFactory(Tags.GetHtmlTagProcessorFactory())
        Dim cssResolver As ICSSResolver = XMLWorkerHelper.GetInstance().GetDefaultCssResolver(False)
        cssResolver.AddCssFile(HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("/assets/css/pdf.css"), True)

        Dim pipeline As New CssResolverPipeline(cssResolver, New HtmlPipeline(htmlContext, New PdfWriterPipeline(document, writer)))
        Dim pdfworker As New XMLWorker(pipeline, True)
        Dim p As New XMLParser(True, pdfworker, New System.Text.UTF8Encoding)

        Try

            'p.AddListener(pdfworker)
            'p.Parse(input, Encoding.UTF8)

            XMLWorkerHelper.GetInstance().ParseXHtml(writer, document, input, New FileStream(HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/assets/css/pdf.css"), FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
        Catch

        Finally
            pdfworker.Close()

        End Try

        document.Close()
        ms.Position = 0

        Response.Buffer = True
        Response.Clear()
        Response.ContentType = "application/pdf"
        Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=preview.pdf")
        Response.BinaryWrite(ms.GetBuffer())
        Response.Flush()
    End Using
End Sub

the CSS file simply contains :

p{color:#e10000;margin-bottom:1.2em;}

(This is to test whether it's rendering correctly, all text should be red)

My problem is that the following command

XMLWorkerHelper.GetInstance().ParseXHtml(writer, document, input, New FileStream(HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/assets/css/pdf.css"), FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))

correctly produces the pdf, but doesn't apply the CSS to it. I know it's reading the CSS because I had a permissions exception until I applied the FileAccess.Read property

the method

p.Parse(input, Encoding.UTF8)

doesn't produce any pdf, just an 'Element not allowed' exception, this is because the html (coming from a radeditor text box Q3 2013) is old html and the parse seems to have a problem with tables.

Answer 1

iTextSharp is very poor with designs using css, images etc. Instead wkhtmltopdf is the best.

Answer 2

Well it would appear that the CSS was correctly being applied as I tested a

td{
    border:1px solid red;
    padding:0.4em;
    margin:0;
}

to the pdf, and all the cells got bordered in red, so it would appear that the pdf overrides certain styles. Not sure why.